NTSB Sets Date for Asiana Airlines Crash Hearing

We’re still impressed by the NTSB’s use of Twitter to communicate matters to the public following accidents like this.

— Jason Clampet

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U.S. investigators plan next month to decide on the probable cause of last year’s Asiana Airlines Inc. crash in California that killed three people and injured 180.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said it scheduled a meeting for June 24 to confer on its probe into why Asiana Flight 214 hit a seawall short of the runway at San Francisco International Airport during a routine landing. The plane was destroyed after it cartwheeled and caught fire.

Documents and cockpit voice-recorder transcripts previously released by the safety board show the plane’s three pilots made mistakes on the approach, not sensing the impending danger until seconds before impact. Questions also have been raised about the design of auto-throttles on the Boeing Co. 777 aircraft and whether related training has been adequate.

Two former Asiana pilots said in interviews that most of the carrier’s crews were uncomfortable with manual flight maneuvers, according to NTSB documents.

Asiana, based in Seoul, was fined $500,000 in February by the U.S. Transportation Department for not promptly helping victims and family members after the July 6 crash, the first such U.S. penalty assessed against an airline.

The crash, which killed three teenage girls from China, was the first accident in the U.S. with passenger deaths since 2009.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jeff Plungis in Washington at jplungis@bloomberg.net; Alan Levin in Washington at alevin24@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bernard Kohn at bkohn2@bloomberg.net.